Adviser: “Prepare for a Financial Pearl Harbor.”

James Rickards, a top adviser for the Pentagon, CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence, is sounding the alarms that America is on the brink of a global “financial war.”

And we aren’t prepared to win it.

Rickards believes that as this war escalates it will cause oil to skyrocket above $190 a barrel, gold to surge to $3,000 an ounce, and, in its aftermath, it could completely decimate the wealth of millions of average Americans overnight.

Unfortunately, Rickards assessment is not one to be taken lightly (it’s happened before in one of our darkest moments in history).

And over the years he’s played a role in some of the most critical events in recent U.S. history, including helping to negotiate an end to the Iran Hostage Crisis, as well as working with the CIA to investigate suspicious insider trading that took place prior to the 9/11 attacks.

“Frankly, there’s not an aircraft carrier we can’t sink, or an army we can’t defeat. And conventional terrorism, while absolutely dangerous, is not on the same scale as a large nation’s army. So what’s happening is rival nations and terrorist organizations are developing capabilities in unconventional warfare. Things like cyber warfare, biological or chemical warfare, and now, financial weapons of mass destruction.”

When asked for specific examples of these financial weapons, Rickards revealed these attacks could involve “gold, oil, sovereign wealth funds, the financial markets, and even cyber-attacks on our banking system.”

In fact, in this interview Rickards provides evidence that China has gained access, through an indirect source, to sensitive financial intelligence at the Federal Reserve and Treasury.

Perhaps, the most alarming moment in the discussion occurred when Rickards shared proof that China is secretly stockpiling gold for a future economic attack.

“They are treating the acquisition of gold like it's a military mission,” Rickards says, concluding that when China reveals how much gold they really have it could cause a “nuclear strike to the American dollar.”

But Rickards warns we need to be on alert for threats from other nations as well.

A country like Iran, Rickards continues, could bring down Wall Street in a single day using backchannels and a web of hedge funds.

And we’d never know it until it’s too late.

All Americans are now vulnerable to, as Rickards puts it, “an economic Pearl Harbor, we never saw coming.”

Besides the National Intelligence Community, Rickards has testified about his findings in front of both the Senate and House of Representatives.

And he is also receiving international attention for his alarming foresight.

Forbes Magazine recently stated that his work is as “important for our era as was [Paul Revere’s] famed Midnight Ride for American Independence.”

What Rickards revealed also caused a Forbes columnist to openly question how the National Intelligence Community allowed him to publicly share the very sensitive nature of his investigation.

His specific words were. . .

“Who the hell cleared this?”

But Rickards isn’t alone in his worries that America and the wealth of each of its citizens is now vulnerable to a new 21st century threat.

The FBI has issued an alert that, “Foreign economic espionage against the U.S. is a significant and growing threat to our country’s economic health and security.”

Adding to the panic is a USA Today report that discusses “An unfolding global war — one fought not with soldiers, tanks or drones but with currencies.”

And Bloomberg reports that the war has already begun and that “Ben Bernanke has won the first offensive by flooding China with inflation.”

Rickards agrees with Bloomberg’s statement that the American government is the aggressor in this war.

In one of his Treasury Meetings, he even went as far as to say that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s policies are “more dangerous to our economy and the national security of the United States than al-Qaida.”

So alarming are Rickards warnings that Aaron DeHoog, the Financial Publisher of Newsmax and Moneynews, assembled a team of financial experts to examine the evidence he’s uncovered.

This team included Steve Forbes, of Forbes Media, Robert Wiedemer, author of the New York Times best-selling book Aftershock, and global investment expert Sean Hyman.

An opinion DeHoog seconded: “It’s important that people see this. For too long Rickards research has been kept classified. We expose everything in our documentary. The threat to average Americans is too big not too.”